Wireless communication can be used as a means of accessing a communication network. Wireless communication has certain advantages over wired communications for accessing a network. For example, implementing a wireless interface can eliminate a need for a wired infrastructure thereby reducing the cost of building and maintaining network infrastructure. In addition, a wireless network can support added mobility by allowing a wireless device to access the network from various locations or addresses. A wireless interface can comprise at least one transceiver in active communication with another transceiver that is connected to the network.
Various types of channel access schemes can be used to communicate data over the wireless interface. For example, one type of channel access scheme uses frequency division. Frequency division can provide different frequency bands to different data streams. For example, on one frequency band, all time slots can be available for uplink transmissions and on another frequency band, all time slots can be available for downlink transmissions. In a time division channel access scheme, different time slots are available to different data streams over the same frequency band. Frequency division schemes can provide twice the bandwidth as time division schemes using the same power.
In a wireless network, resources required for uplink transmissions are generally different from resources required for downlink transmissions thus implementing a frequency division scheme can result in unused frequency resources which can undesirably impact transmission in the network. However, when wireless devices within a geographical location are assigned similar communication resources, interference can degrade the communications.
Overview
A system and method of scheduling communication in a wireless communication network are provided. An access node can receive an uplink scheduling request from a wireless device. The access node can communicate with the wireless device over a first frequency band and a second frequency band. The access node can determine an interference indicator associated with the wireless device. The access node can determine a first scheduling scheme for the first frequency band of the access node and a second scheduling scheme for the second frequency band of the access node based on the uplink request and the interference indicator. The first scheduling scheme can comprise a first uplink portion and the second scheduling scheme can comprise a second uplink portion wherein the first uplink portion does not overlap the second uplink portion. The wireless device can be instructed to communicate uplink data to the access node during the first uplink portion of the first scheduling scheme and to communicate uplink data to the access node during the section uplink portion of the second scheduling scheme.